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Banned 'Throw Your Phone' Game Knows if You're Cheating

A new app encourages you to throw your phone as high as possible. Here's why the algorithms it uses involve zero gravity.

Image courtesy Carrot Pop

Like many successful smartphone games, the goal of Send Me to Heaven is easily communicated. Unlike other games, the goal is to throw your phone as high as you can, then catch it.

It's available on Android, but not the App Store. Apple determined the game was "encouraging behavior that could result in damage to the user’s device," and thus did cast Send Me to Heaven out of its walled garden paradise. App creator Petr Svarovsky told WIRED that he was disappointed by the ban. The 50-year-old from Prague said he had hoped to have people shatter as many iPhones as possible.

"The original idea was to have very expensive gadgets, which people in certain societies buy just to show off, and to get them to throw it," he said via Skype.

He has not been without some success, however. Send Me to Heaven has been causing ample destruction for reckless Android users, who have been leaving negative reviews on the Google Play store, where the game has been available since April 28.

"I have broken my S4," one reviewer wrote. "I think they took the fun out of the game right before I failed to catch my phone. Fuuuuuuuuuuu."

"Already got a good ding on the corner of my RAZR from it," wrote another. "BAHAHAHAHA!"

Such are the hazards of playing Send Me to Heaven. And if you're thinking of cheating the leaderboards to impress your friends with your willingness to chuck your phone, don't bother. To determine the height to which you've flung your phone, the game detects the time that the phone is in zero gravity.

"When the phone leaves your hand," Svarovsky said, "it starts to climb, and it is already in zero gravity. When it hits your hand again, it is sensing gravity again."

Svarovsky takes the time that the phone was in zero gravity, divides it by two, and inserts it into a free-fall formula. It's surprisingly precise on most phones, he says, although some models of Android phones work better than others.

"Sometimes they have accelerometers mounted out of the center, so when they rotate, they give a strange number," he says.

The method Svarovsky uses to calculate the height means Send Me to Heaven won't work with extreme stunts, like hurling it from a cliff or take it skydiving. Any time your phone falls further than it rose, the app returns an error.

The leaderboards for Send Me to Heaven show some players have managed to get their phones as high as 40 meters (131 feet). Svarovsky did a little investigating to learn how that impressive score was achieved and discovered some players are using slingshots.

Svarovsky first tested the game on attendees of a music festival in Oslo, and it was a hit. In fact, just the concept was enough to get some thrill-seekers trying it out: Without even bothering to download the app first, he says, people began throwing their own phones as high as they could, often failing to catch them.

Although Send Me to Heaven might not catch on with anyone who doesn't have $500 to blow on a new phone every time they lose, there's definitely a takeaway from a game design standpoint. With most videogames, Svarovsky observes, all the fun happens behind the screen. Not so with Send Me to Heaven.

"You know," he says, "it's possible to take the fun outside of the box."